


how to make a perfect cup of tea

by bar_examined



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22365328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar_examined/pseuds/bar_examined
Relationships: Damara Megido/Rufioh Nitram (past)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	how to make a perfect cup of tea

step one: obtain teapot. odds are it’s cold, so rinse it with a splash of warm water. a cold teapot will shock the tea leaves.  
  
step two: set a small amount of water to boil. you’re only making tea for yourself, so it doesn’t really matter exactly how much you make. if there’s too much, you’ll just drink more of it.  
  
step three: quietly search for tea leaves before remembering their presence on the shelf above the stovetop.  
  
you cannot reach that shelf unassisted. there used to be someone else to grab things for you, but he isn’t here anymore.  
  
step four: retrieve stepstool from pantry. it’s dusty from disuse.  
  
step five: spend a few moments staring with detached disgust at the dusty stool. attempt to brush some of it off with your shirt, already discolored and stained.  
  
you don’t have to look presentable, you remind yourself. there is no one but you. you are alone in your hive for the first time in sweeps.  
  
step six: successfully manage to sweep some small amount of grime off of your stool. it’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. you raise yourself on the newly cleaned planes to retrieve a bag of dried plant matter.  
  
step seven: thoughtfully examine teas, despite barely looking at them. find yourself thinking of other things that you could be doing other than this. much less kind and banal things than brewing tea. vengeance, whether wreaked on yourself or those who’ve wronged you.  
  
  
  
  
  
step eight: firmly push aforementioned musings out of your mind. decide that after you finish this tea you’ll roll up a different type of herbal medication for yourself to calm down.  
  
step nine: grab tea leaves at random. you have grown impatient with yourself. it doesn’t really matter in the end what kind of tea you drink. it doesn’t even matter if you drink tea or not. the taste of tea is even more fleeting than life itself, and most lives do not even matter in the long run.  
  
  
  
  
  
if lives are without consequence for the most part, and to follow the logical conclusion of this fact is to understand that the things that you use to sustain yourself or bring small pleasures are also devoid of meaningfulness in the grand scheme of things.  
  
  
step ten: descend from stepstool with newly-retrieved tea leaves place them into the bottom of the teapot. pour boiling water over them and inhale the steam produced.  
  
the moisture of the water vapor will mix with the salty tear-tracks left behind on your face and begin to erase them from the outside in.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
step eleven: wait for the tea to steep.  
  
step twelve: continue waiting.  
  
step thirteen: decide that you are bored of waiting, but not bored enough to drink watery tea. proceed to neighboring alcove to obtain pornographic material.  
  
step fourteen: idly flip through your smut while keeping one eye on the clock. keeping time in mind is vital to making sure your tea steeps for the correct amount of time, no more or less.  
  
step fifteen: when the appropriate amount of time has passed, abandon your reading. fetch and rinse teacup with warm water.  
  
step sixteen: pour tea into cup. No need for a saucer, as using one would only make more work for you later when you do the cleaning up.  
  
step seventeen: strain solids. if there is tea still left in the pot, understand that it will be more bitter than this first cup due to the leaves there steeping longer.  
  
step eighteen: add milk to taste, like you always have.  
  
step nineteen: after searching in vain for the milk, remember throwing it out of your hive in rage after your boyfriend ran off with his so-called lover.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
remember how your boyfriend told you that he’d love you until the end of your lives and how it was the two of you against the world.  
  
  
remember the causal casteism with which the pony-boy dismissed you out of hand and treated your belongings like trash.  
  
  
remember how as the nights went on and on your matespirit grew more distant, and how he went missing for longer periods every time he returned.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
in the end you didn’t even find out he’d left from the cheater himself. rufioh wouldn’t ever have had the globes to do that, but...there is something that is so much worse about hearing about your own life in the mocking jeers of others.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
is there something wrong with you? nothing you do ever seems to work out, almost as though your life is just a nightmare you fail to wake up from day after day.  
  
  
perhaps if there is a god out there, this is his idea of some kind of joke? some sort of divine comedy?  
  
  
perhaps there is no god, and you are a selfish, self-centered girl who has no real concept of love except for what she sees on tv. perhaps rufioh and horuss are happy and you are the evil wench that would tear them apart.  
  
  
  
perhaps such things are unknowable, and the trolls who focus their lives on such things are exactly the wastes of time and space they think they are. just another unmoving cog slowing down the world machine and bringing it ever-closer to its eventual ruin.  
  
  
  
…  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
step twenty: drink the now-cold tea black. you never could stand sugar.  
  
step twenty-one: finish off the rest of the pot, then hand wash it. leave it out turned upside-down to air-dry.  
  



End file.
